


Wayward Souls

by RachelEvening



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen, Same-Sex Daemons, Self-Acceptance, Self-Esteem Issues, daemon AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-05-17 22:53:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5888368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RachelEvening/pseuds/RachelEvening
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say that daemons should be listened, as they are our voices of reason. It is said that daemons are important, as it's one of the things that set us apart from animals. They say that daemons should be cherished, as they are the reflection of our souls. They take the form of what we truly are inside.</p><p>Wirt knew all of this, but he had a hard time accepting it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First steps

**Author's Note:**

> Reasons behind the final forms and names of the daemons will be given at the end :)
> 
> Daemons come from His Dark Materials, written by Philip Pullman.
> 
> Those familiar with the HDM universe will know that daemons can't go to the land of the dead. However, since OTGW and HDM seem to have different concepts of the Afterlife, and doing things like that would have resulted in some plot holes, I have decided to make things a little different: Daemons can go into the Unknown, but once inside the woods it's disturbingly easy for them to disappear...
> 
> Also: Although I feel that the concept of same-sex daemons is overused, I couldn't help but imagine Wirt with one. It would be one of those things he would make a big deal of, even if it's not.

The woods seemed dark and endless. Wirt knew that it could be his pessimistic side talking, but he was sure that he hadn’t seen these woods on his life, and if the shudders he could feel coming from the small daemon on his shoulder were any indication, Noba shared the feeling.

  
Everything seemed so dark…So hostile…

  
Greg and his daemon seemed to be completely unaware of their surroundings, though. They were still fixated on the frog they had found.

  
“..Antelope, Guggenheim, Albert, Salami…”- Greg was saying as they walked. Iova, on the current form of a baby elephant to match Greg’s teacup ‘costume’, was also coming up with names.  
“…Freddy, Daddy-long-legs, Tricky, Greenlord…”  
“…Leg-Face McCullen, Artichoke, Pete, Steve...”- Greg and Iova shared a look before he finished his sentence-“…But I think the very worst name for this frog is…”

  
Noba sighed; he couldn’t stand this nonsense any longer. They needed to get out of these woods, right now!

  
Wirt stopped Greg mid-sentence. “Wait…Wait a second…”-He said, looking around for anything familiar-looking, but he still couldn’t find nothing.

  
“Uh… Greg?”- They could hear an owl hooting and squirrels chittering, but even those familiar forest sounds seemed frightening. Noba, as a firefly, was now flying around to see if he recognized anything. But his light wasn’t enough to make sense of the darkness around them. “…Where are we?”

  
“In the woods?”- Greg answered, as if it was that simple. Iova was now a small raccoon, titling her head in confusion before looking around her. Yeah, the place was unknown for both of them…But all they had to do was find their way home. It couldn’t be that complicated.

  
“I mean…”- Wirt continued, his daemon still in the middle of a panic attack- “What are we…doing out here?”

  
“We are walking home”

  
Iova, seeing that Noba seemed a little too stressed out for her taste, shifted to a hummingbird and tried to fly around with him to cheer him up. But Noba flew back to Wirt instead and hid under his hat.

  
“Greg, I think we are lost…”- Wirt concluded. A dormouse’s muzzle appeared from under his cone hat to add a whispered “ _Definitely lost_ ” before scurrying back in. “I think we should have left a trail or something…”

  
“We can leave a trail of candy from my pants!”- He answered, already throwing it to the ground.

  
“Yeah!”- Iova approved the idea instantly, dropping to the ground and wagging her small wolfdog puppy tail- “We are willing to sacrifice our delicious candy to guide us all home. Just like in the fairy tales!”

  
Wirt couldn’t see him, but he thought he could feel how Noba scoffed at the idea. 

 

***

 

Abnoba had a girl’s name, but Wirt knew that his daemon was male ever since he could remember. His mother knew it, his father knew it and Greg knew it. His stepfather also knew, not that Wirt was especially thrilled about it.

  
No one else out of his family knew, however. Not his neighbours, not his teachers, not even Sara. _Especially_ not Sara. Wirt was convinced that if word came out that Noba was of the same gender as him he would become an outcast, the laughing stock of the school, if not the entire town.

  
As a result, Noba almost never spoke in public, and when he did it was always in whispers. His forms were also as small as possible, which only added a new layer to Wirt’s issues with his own daemon.

  
While his classmates’ daemons were running and playing around as wildcats, large dogs, colorful birds and other forms teenagers usually took because the ‘cool’ factor, Noba was hiding under his clothes or silently watching from his shoulder. He had been a turtle, a gecko, a gerbil, a dragonfly, a rat, a beetle, a dwarf rabbit… Never settling on anything, though that sometimes came as a relief.

  
He was convinced that Noba would end up being a moth, a chipmunk or something equally pathetic. Not something beautiful like Sara’s bird daemon, Agapi, not something cool like Jason Funderberker’s snake. With a little luck, at least it would be something that he could get used to, but he didn’t have high expectations.

 

  
It never occurred to him that maybe he was unconsciously forcing those forms on Noba on the first place…

 

***

 

Neither Wirt nor his daemon trusted the Woodsman that much, but following him was better than staying behind. He was the first person they had found since they got lost in the forest…Talking birds notwithstanding.

  
Still, Noba was nervous around the stranger’s daemon: A bear with dark black fur and long claws. She was smaller than the polar and grizzly bears he and Wirt had read about once, but she was still bigger than any of the shapes he had ever took and the way she seemed to look at them wasn’t threatening but it was not very welcoming either. They seemed nice other than that, but still Noba left a tiny sigh of relief after they left to work on the Mill.

  
“…I guess we could just leave”. Noba, now as a gray squirrel, had fully recovered from his little freak out and crawled down from his head to his shoulder; his fluffy tail tickling him on the neck as he did.

  
“I’m not so sure…”- He retorted, glancing at the window-“If the Beast he was talking about is real, then…”

  
There was still the possibility that that man was insane or lying, but they still didn’t want to test that out first hand.

  
Wirt opted to lie on the sofa to think. Noba joined him, shifting into something smaller: A butterfly, with large wings of the color and shape of autumn leaves. Wirt wasn’t actually very fond of that form, but it was comfortable for Noba in the sense that it was very easy to hide from view with it. He perched on the furniture, moving lazily his wings as his human half had another moment of poetic inspiration.

 

“Sometimes I feel like I’m just a boat, upon a winding river…” 

 

 

***

 

Neither of them knew what to think of Beatrice at first. Wirt at first guessed that she could be someone’s daemon, but separated by distance, like the witches he had read about. But Noba assured him that she didn’t seem like a daemon at all. And after going through Pottsfield… Well, suddenly the whole ‘talking bird’ thing didn’t seemed so weird anymore, so Wirt decided not to ask her about it. She was just a bluebird, sentient but still a bluebird, so it was normal for her to not have a daemon.

  
They were wrong, but they wouldn’t know it until much later…

  
Both Greg and Iova had been improvising a song about Adelaide, ignoring their request for silence. Noba sometimes had to admit that he envied Iova’s carefree nature: While he hid as a Darkling beetle under Wirt’s hat out of pure panic when the beast dog appeared, Iova had been brave enough to stay at Greg’s side the whole time mimicking the “wolf’s” form, even playfully tackling the dog once it became obvious to her that it was no real danger.

  
Then again, it was impossible to know how much of that was bravery or was simple obliviousness of danger.

  
“Don’t you want to be more like your brother?”- Beatrice asked- “Just always doing what you are told? Just a pathetic pushover who relies on others to make all his decisions?”  
Both of them took offense on that one. Noba had been fluttering around, his wings dancing with the breeze like fallen leaves, but the instance he heard such hurtful words he came back to Wirt as an Emperor scorpion and scoffed.

  
“Hey… What? I’m not a pushover!”- Wirt took a hand to his shoulder to caress Noba, who turned into a shrew at the touch, but he was still visibly mad. As proof, he glared his tiny teeth to Beatrice, who was anything but impressed.

  
“Oh yeah? Then why is your daemon always so small?”- She answers. Beatrice would have responded differently on another situation, but Wirt’s daemon was an enigma for her and she wasn’t going to let that one pass.

  
“…What?”-He was a little nervous now, they both were. Noba started to flicker between forms, one smaller than the other. He didn’t liked when someone noticed him enough to ask about him.

  
“That!”- She exclaimed, pointing at Noba with her wing- “If your daemon is always something you can squish under a boot, what does that says about you? Even servants have dog daemons larger than that…”

  
“Mister O’Brien has a wasp daemon, and he’s always happy”- Greg replies, referring to one of their neighbours. Wirt decides to not answer to that and to just continue walking, but is then when Noba decides to do something unexpected.

  
The daemon, who had been flickering between invertebrates and rodents since they arrived to the Unknown, suddenly shifted to an American kestrel out of spite, just to prove to Beatrice and to himself he could be something a little bigger.

  
Wirt gasped when he felt the light talons on his shoulder: Noba had taken bird forms before, sure, but when he did it was always a wren, a sparrow, even a raven, but never a bird of prey.

  
It was new, and it felt a little weird but…It was nice for a change, so he welcomed it.

  
Noba continued to experiment with that kind of forms: He was an owl, a hawk, a falcon… He even started to take other predator forms outside of birds. Sure, he still had a weak spot for small things, but he was now freely shifting between a lynx and a bee, for example.

  
But, most of all, there was something that Wirt immediately took notice of: His daemon was now never a butterfly or anything resembling it if he could help it. 

 

If they were going to keep running into weird, potentially dangerous things, he didn’t wanted to look weak…

 


	2. A Pilgrim's Soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just because I feel guilty that I completely cut them out of the fic: Ms. Langtree and Jimmy Brown's daemons are a Rosy-faced lovebird and a Prairie Vole respectively. Lovebirds are social and smart creatures, so it would make sense for a teacher to have one as a daemon. And in this universe, one of the reasons poor Jimmy couldn't convince anyone that he wasn't a gorilla was because his daemon was so small that she got trapped inside the costume along with him. 
> 
> And of course: Both lovebirds and prairie voles are animals known for sticking with their chosen mate for life.

“I know it ended up being harmless but… If that dog thing had hurt Greg, what would have you done?”- Noba had asked him after they left the Mill, but he didn’t answered.

  
“Do you think they are searching for us?”- He asked on another occasion, referring to their mother and stepfather. Wirt pretended to not have heard that, and he didn’t asked again.

  
“If…If we don’t make it out, do you think Sara and Agapi will miss us?”

  
Noba stopped doing such questions after he noticed that it only made Wirt ignore him more. He wasn’t feeling ready to answer those questions.

  
_I don't know…_

 

_***_

 

It was raining. Or course, it had to be raining.

  
Outstretching his wings, Noba glanced at both Wirt and Greg, relieved that the hay had prevented them from breaking a bone or something worse. He should have warned Wirt that the crazy driver didn’t seemed to know where he was going, but he stayed silent. Beatrice had spoken his thoughts for him anyway…Just before they all fell out of the horse cart.

  
“Well, finally some good luck”-Beatrice said, earning a confused look from the barn owl-shaped daemon before she continued- “Let’s go to this creepy tavern and ask for some directions”.

  
Well, at least she acknowledged that it was creepy.

  
“But…”-As Wirt spoke, lightning briefly shone over the mysteriously-looking tavern, revealing a weird masked man looking through the window. His daemon, a black-footed ferret, had also been seemingly looking at their direction.-“…it’s creepy.”

  
“Why don’t you guys go ask for directions and I’ll just wait out…”- Before he could finish the sentence he was interrupted by a sniff coming from his own daemon. Noba was getting cold from the rain and he was feeling extremely uncomfortable out there in the darkness of the night. Wirt would have liked to ignore it…But he couldn’t. – “No, wait…I don’t want to be here all by myself…”

  
“Just go to the tavern!”

  
“Okay…But you ask for directions”-Wirt retorted. Beatrice scoffed, saying something about how she had to do everything herself.

  
“I’m hungry…”- Greg reminded them, holding his pet frog in his arms and his equally hungry daemon over his head, resting her body over the teacup. “I hope they have lots of delicious food”-Iova purred, looking at the tavern with excitement in her eyes.

  
None of them noticed the woodsman and his bear daemon hiding behind the trees… _  
_

 

_***_

 

“Well, at least it has music…”- Wirt thought aloud. Noba could only nod.

  
Inside the tavern, everything seemed out of an old painting, and a surreal one at that. There was just something off about the people around them: The weeping tailor with the equally unhappy mourning dove quietly sobbing at his side, the midwife’s daemon was a carp she kept around in a bucket full of water (Wasn’t people with fish daemons supposed to live at the sea…Or somewhere with natural water?), the master was keeping his apprentice tied up on a leash for some reason…And the least they thought about the highway man, the better.

  
The rest of the situation seemed as normal as it was going to get: The tavern keeper was quick to welcome them, while her Old English sheepdog daemon kept an eye on the door in case any other client came along with them.

  
“Hey…What’s that bird you got there?”-She asked.

  
Noba, feeling alluded to even when he knew she wasn’t referring to him, was quick to shift to a long-furred cat to feel more comfortable. He wasn’t pretending to be feeling cold out there.

  
“I am Beatrice”- She introduced herself- “These two sweet kids and I got a bit lost on the…AUUGH!”

  
None of them saw the broom coming. Wirt just stared while his daemon took a step back or two on the table, his amber eyes wide open. The sheepdog daemon was no longer at the door, but he was now by his human’s side looking at Beatrice like she was some kind of poisonous creature.

  
“No birds allowed in my tavern”

  
“No birds allowed in your…?”

  
“It’s an ill omen when a bluebird comes through your door…”-She explained, while her formerly cute-looking soul was glaring his teeth at her-“Its bad luck!”

  
Wirt rested a hand of Noba’s fur: The sudden change on their attitude was making him nervous, and he as well by extension.

  
“Lady, bluebirds are good luck. We bring joy and happiness to the…”-Beatrice tried to say, only to knocked over by the broom again.

  
“Good luck, bad luck…I don’t need any of it!”-The tavern keeper insisted, while her daemon also growled something under his breath, still loud enough to be heard by them-“…You _soulless_ thing.”

  
Wirt didn’t know what to make of it, but Beatrice seemed to take offense on that one. She left immediately, not before not-so-subtly wishing death on the woman.

  
So…Now it was their job to get directions. From people who may or may not be completely nuts. _Awesome_.

  
“Who are you two anyway, bringing bad luck to my tavern?”- She asked then, staring at them. Greg came back at that exact moment, holding a plate full of meat and bread. Iova, now as a wild boar piglet, was hungrily chewing on a piece of bread, even though daemons usually don’t need to eat.

  
“I’m Wirt…And this is Gregory”-He said, knowing that Abnoba would probably hiss at him if he introduced himself by also telling her his name. Introducing both you and your daemon was considered formal, but thankfully not necessary.

  
“And that’s a horse!”-Greg cheerfully pointed out, referring to the horse out of the window.

  
“That’s great, but who are you?”- She asked again. Even though his fur covered his eyes, Abnoba could tell that the other daemon was staring at him, making him uncomfortable. He had to fight the impulse of turning into a dead leaf-looking insect again.

  
“I’m Wirt and I’m just a guy…I guess.”- He held Noba in his arms, hoping that would help to keep at bay the anxiety both of them were feeling-“What…What do you mean?”

  
“Well, he’s the butcher…”- She said pointing at a hulky guy with a shrike daemon on his shoulder, and so continued with the rest of the people on the tavern, referring to them by the name of their jobs. –“…Who are you?”

  
Greg and his daemon were, as always, seemingly oblivious to the whole situation. “We are hungry!”- They answered at the same time, holding one…No, two empty plates of the food that they just ate.

  
“I…I don’t know. I don’t really like labels”- Wirt said, trying to ignore that Noba was now bristling his fur at the fact that the entire tavern was now looking at them-“I’m just sorta like…myself, you know?”

  
“Maybe he’s simple”- The master said, the Great horned owl over his head giving them a look that could only be interpreted as condescending.

  
“No! I’m just…I’m just lost, see?”- He answered, putting Abnoba on the table and giving him a light tap on the head, the mental message between them simple and clear: “…Could you stop that? I can’t keep it cool if my daemon keeps panicking for everything…”

  
Noba just curled up there in silence. _  
_

 

_***_

 

He tried to ask the Toymaker for directions, seeing as he seemed to be the most cheerful of the bunch, but that only lead to him mistakenly assuming that he was searching for Adelaide because he was in love with her, which…Would have been awkward enough of its own if they hadn’t all decided to call him the “young lover” and started to sing about it.

  
“…Adelaide isn’t…I’m just…”-Wirt tried to explain, but he couldn’t find the words. Abnoba was now a rodent once again: An orange gerbil hiding under his cape, apparently trying to make himself disappear. Just when he thought his daemon was making some progress…

  
“Sing us your love song!”-The midwife exclaimed, her fish daemon making a happy pirouette on the bucket where he was confined for his own good.

  
“…Love song?”

  
Oh, no. Wirt knew a few things about music: He loved to listen to it, he played the clarinet and his stepfather had been annoying him with the idea that he should join the marching band. But he couldn’t sing even if his life depended on it.

  
“Yeah, lover”-The butcher demanded-“Sing us your love song!”

  
Soon, the whole tavern was just one voice. “Sing, lover, sing!”

  
“I don’t have any love song…”- Wirt thought, desperately trying to think of a way to get out of the situation. He…He wasn’t going to have to sing about Sara, wasn’t he?

 

"Sing, lover, sing!"

 

“Don’t sing about love…Sing about anything!”- Noba whispered to him-“Sing about how much we want directions!”

  
For the first time since it happened, Wirt was sincerely thankful that Beatrice was out of the tavern: The terrible song, if it could even be called that, was something he didn’t wanted to be reminded of.

  
“Hey!”-The butcher screamed at them, his shrike soul flapping her wings.

  
“Uh…Yes?”

  
Noba came out of the collar of his shirt and perched on his shoulder, changing to a kestrel form to give him security. If they were angry for the song, they could always run.  
But to the surprise of both of them, that wouldn’t be the case.

  
“I know what you are, you are a pilgrim!”-The butcher continued.

  
“What?”- Wirt was confused now. Noba was as lost as him, judging by the way he ruffled his feathers-“Like the guys who ate turkey and…?”

  
“No, you are a pilgrim!”-The butcher insisted, lifting him up-“You are a traveler on a sacred duty”

  
“You are the master of your own destiny”- The guy with the owl daemon proclaimed, the condescending look on their eyes long gone.

  
“…A pilgrim”- Wirt have never thought that anyone would call him such things as ‘hero of his own story’ or anything like that, just because he had never thought of himself in such terms, either. Everyone and their daemon were now surrounding them to ask them about their adventures, but even that didn’t felt so bad right now.

  
“One time, Wirt fell on a gorilla”-Greg said, he and Iova were more than happy to join the fun. Noba rolled his eyes: Both knew that hadn’t been an actual gorilla. The people around them cheered nonetheless. –“…And helped me find this frog!”

  
“And…Oh,uh…”- Wirt started to talk as well, seeing as everything seemed to be going great.-“I met this helpful woodsman who told us which direction to go to avoid the _Beast_ ”

  
As soon as those words came out of his mouth, a fearful look appeared on their faces. He fell to the ground; and Noba was immediately at his side to check on him. He was a small feline again, but instead of the fluffy domestic cat of just minutes before, Wirt found a spotted lynx gazing back at him.

  
“…I’m fine”- He murmured, briefly petting his head before turning to the people around them.-“So…You guys have heard about the Beast too?”

  
All of the daemons exchanged looks: The Tavern keeper’s sheepdog whimpered a little; all of the birds outstretched their wings as if they wanted to fly away, the apprentice’s daemon had taken the form of a small terrier and was covering her head with her paws, trembling…

  
“We all know the Beast, pilgrim…” _  
_

 

_***_

 

“Beatrice!”-Wirt called, trying to hear any response, but only silence and the occasional nocturnal animal answered back. He didn’t knew much about the right way of riding a horse, but as he discovered mere moments later, this particular horse was willingly helping him out.

  
“Noba, do you see anything yet?”- He asked at him, who was flying as ahead of the horse as the bond between them allowed him to, his owl eyes gazing into the darkness.

  
“Still nothing! Keep calling for her…”

  
“Why can’t I help? I can transform into a cool bird too”- Iova offered, taking a backseat along with Gregory and the frog.

  
“Because it’s too dangerous, you could…”- Wirt interrupted himself. Just ahead of them, there was yet another of those creepy trees. This one had more than one ‘face’, and all of them were seemingly screaming in agony.

  
“Wirt…”- Abnoba gasped, terrified, and even though he didn’t say any other word he knew why. Because those trees had felt inexplicably wrong since the very beginning, and if what the tavern keeper had said to them was true, then…

  
“Halt!”

  
Wirt looked down. The Woodsman was right there in front of them with his startled bear daemon behind him, growling at them.

  
“Hey, Mr. Woodsman!”- Greg greeted them, with Iova wagging her tail in hopes of lighten up the mood of the situation.

  
“I told you to leave these woods!”-He screamed at them, the bear echoing his words. Abnoba quickly flew back to Wirt, evading the Woodsman’s daemon as much as he could in case she tried to attack him.

  
“Wirt, look…”-He whispered to his ear, but he had already seen it too: There, at the roots of the tree, completely motionless…

 

  
Beatrice.

 

  
“…You are turning her into an Edelwood tree!”-Wirt accused. Both the Woodsman and his daemon seemed confused and saddened at this, but he didn’t want to get fooled again.-“You were the Beast all along”

  
And sure that both his daemon and him were thinking the same plan, he blew out his lantern.

 

  
In the short chaos that followed, Wirt latched onto the Woodsman’s leg to keep him from doing anything while yelling for Greg to get Beatrice. When the bear daemon seemed to be about to do something against it, Abnoba, for the first time in his shy existence, shifted into a lion and tackled her to the ground.

  
“Stop it!”-She growled at him, not fighting back more out of surprise that anything else-“You don’t know what you are doing…”

  
Meanwhile, the Woodsman grabbed Wirt by his clothes. “Boys, the Beast is upon you!”-He warned him, holding him in a way that he could only kick the air between them. Well, the air and…

  
Without a second thought, he kicked the lantern out of his hand. The burning oil spilled, engulfing the Eldelwood tree in flames.

  
Wirt stared at the fire for a second. If the tree really used to be a living thing, he could only hope those flames would free their soul. _  
_

 

_***_

 

“…What was that?”-He asked Noba later, when they were taking a short break to rest and neither Greg, Beatrice nor Fred were paying them attention.

  
Noba was a lynx again. He sat on the grass, relaxed, but one of his ears was twitching.

  
“The people of the tavern believe us to be a pilgrim, and I want to believe it too…”-He said softly-“And if I’m going to be the ‘compass inside your heart’ for this journey, I better start to act like it…Right?” _  
_

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that the daemons I choose for the people of the tavern were self-explanatory (If they were not, please feel free to ask!). As for the sheepdog: I usually don't like to turn pets into daemons because it seems lazy, but in this case it seemed to fit. I hope some of you agree with me. 
> 
> Also, feel free to guess which animal will Noba settle into at the end! (Hint: It won't be as small as Wirt thought it would be. I don't think I'm spoiling anything with that.)
> 
> Next chapter will be explaining more about Beatrice's situation in this AU. It's...A little worse than it was in canon. Just a little...


	3. Beatrice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long absence. Life and writer's block kept getting in the way. 
> 
> Also, my apology for anyone who thought Beatrice's daemon would be a bluebird: Tempting, but the more I thought about it I realized it didn't really fit. As always, explanations for the daemons's forms at the end.

It was a beautiful day when it happened. It was ironic, but it was true. The sun shone above the forest, making the autumn leaves shine like gold.

 

She had walked away from home, saying to her family that she was taking the dog for a walk. In reality, she only wanted an excuse to be alone with her thoughts. She had to speak alone to her daemon about something.

 

He was also there with her, of course. After she sat on the ground he stood protectively beside her, his reddish fur shining with the sun just like the leaves around them.

 

She knows is an act, thought. Beatrice knows that he is nervous for what he knows she is going to ask him, and he is just trying to play it cool. Her daemon could be silly sometimes.

 

She speaks to him anyway.

 

“Vergil, be honest with me…”-She says, petting her dog. He glanced at her, his wild amber eyes full of doubt and what seemed like sadness.

 

“…We didn’t make it out of that fire, didn’t we?”

 

* * *

 

 

Beatrice didn’t know what annoyed her more:  Seeing Wirt’s daemon trying to be as small, silent and invisible as possible, or seeing Wirt seemingly not caring about that and even enjoying it. The boy and his soul were almost never seen talking to each other, and Abnoba was always the size of a rat…Or, at their worst, an ant.

 

Vergil never liked to be anything smaller than a cat.

 

Her mother liked to joke about it, whether she saw her young daughter walking around with a Shire horse of all things beside her. They didn’t stopped at just horses, neither: Buffalos, stags, bears, mountain lions, jackals, wolverines… The smaller Vergil got on those years was when he became a dangerous-looking snake to scare away a bully who had gotten on their nerves.

 

And it was also kind of funny too, because out of the two of them, Vergil was always the timid, “cowardly” one: The one to remind her that what she was about to do was dangerous, the one to stay behind and tell her to ask Mom for permission, the first one to get nervous whether she lost sight of one of her younger brothers… Every time something bad happened, Vergil always feared for the worst.

 

However, unlike the daemon of a certain someone she would meet on the future, Vergil always chose the bigger form possible exactly for this reason. Being small made him feel vulnerable, so he liked to look stronger than what he believed himself to be. And she loved it.

 

People outside her family didn’t saw it that way, though: A lady’s daemon had to be beautiful and delicate, big farm animals and wild beasts were better left to men. The daemons of the girls of her same age were usually shifting between butterflies and cute fluffy dogs, fancy cats and songbirds. At first she thought it was just stupid, until she learnt the hidden meaning behind all that nonsense, and it became something even worse: Girls with ‘ugly’ daemons had more trouble finding a husband, because men weren’t interested in marrying a woman whose soul could overpower their own.

 

They couldn’t understand it, they just couldn’t:  Mom’s daemon was a beaver, and no one said anything about her. “Beavers are natural workers and live and breathe for their homes and family, and can also fit into a house. What will you do if your daemon settles into an enormous beast that can’t fit anywhere and only knows how to destroy?”- One adult answered to her one day when she tried to use that argument, while glancing at the indeed enormous grizzly bear daemon behind her - “What if he settles into something you’ll regret?”

 

Vergil, feeling a little offended, was quick to shift to something smaller: A honey badger, all teeth and muscle. “It’s this better?”-He asked to Beatrice, making her giggle. The man just sighed and left while his daemon, a striped polecat, took a moment to scoff to Vergil before turning her back to him and follow her human. There was worry in their eyes.

 

The only ones who never minded Vergil’s forms were her mom and brothers, especially her brothers, whose own daemons were more than happy to copy him. Even so, as she grew up she played along for a while, even if it was just to keep everyone to stop staring at her. Vergil was unhappy about this, he was too honest to lie about that, but he got used to shifting between wildcats and domestic ones. He also started to shift between different types of birds, just to feel what it was like to fly around. Hawks, sparrows, eagles, finches, seagulls, crows, falcons… And bluebirds.

 

The townsfolk didn’t bother her as much, even if there was still some malicious comment here and there. Witches were known to have bird daemons, after all. She couldn’t care less: She was just doing this to have some peace. The people around her thought happily that she was starting to “grow up” and for a while everything was more or less normal.

 

…Then Vergil finally settled, and everything went to hell.

 

* * *

 

 

“Yes, tea. That’s my trade!” – The rich old guy exclaimed, with an excitement Beatrice thought would have suited better a child. His daemon, some kind of black striped, blue grey-furred flying squirrel she had never seen before  and didn’t knew anything about (A sugar glider, she remembered), was running around the table in a similar state. – “Quincy Endicott’s Health Tea!”

 

“Your tea sounds good!”- Greg complimented, while Iova shifted into a chipmunk and joined Quincy’s daemon on the table. For some reason, the two souls had gotten along perfectly since the first moment…On a second thought, maybe it wasn’t that surprising.

 

While Quincy had yet another mood swing, Wirt seemed to be waiting for the ideal moment to say something. Abnoba, on the current form of an arctic fox, was nervously watching over the two other daemons without joining in, clearly uncomfortable with the situation.  The fact that Wirt’s daemon had suddenly started taking forms with more presence had not been unnoticed by her, but the odd silence remained.

 

There could such a thing as a mute daemon?

 

Apparently not, because at that exact moment the fox daemon whispered something too quietly for Beatrice to hear, and Wirt finally decided to speak.

 

“Umm, Beatrice…”- Wirt said, both he and his daemon turning their heads to look at her- “Why are you pretending I’m this guy’s nephew”

 

Said guy and Greg had now joined their daemons and were dancing in the table. Beatrice didn’t know if she felt amusement or embarrassment.

 

“Wasn’t it obvious?”-She thought, but looking at the pair of eyes watching her she quickly remembered it was not- “We need money”

 

Abnoba’s fur bristled, and Wirt seemed honestly surprised. “You’re scamming him?”

 

“I was thinking more like flat-out stealing from him…”- Beatrice shrugged it off.

 

What follows is a short and silly argument where even Fred, the talking horse who had joined them back at the tavern, gets to say something. Who doesn’t talk is Abnoba, who has curled up on their fluffy tail while glancing at them, once again lost on their weird silence.

 

Beatrice would understand it if it was just shyness, but there was something in the daemon’s eyes, something that told her that they (She, he? Beatrice had never heard them talk so she didn’t know their gender…) wanted to talk. But they just wouldn’t.

 

Well, more proof that Wirt was a pushover, she guessed…

 

* * *

 

 

It happened one evening…

 

People make the moment your daemon settles sound like a big thing, like the revelation of a lifetime. They tell stories about how their daemon settled when they were having this great epiphany about themselves or when they made a shocking discovery about their town or some cheesy thing like that.

 

The truth is that, sometimes, it just happens.

 

Both of them were watching the clouds in the darkening sky. Beatrice couldn’t remember why they were watching the sky; she just could remember them doing it.

 

Vergil was a magpie: One moment perched on her shoulder, the other flying around her, enjoying the evening breeze. After a while he decided to drop the act and take other forms, since there was no one around to tell him not to.

 

The moon was already visible in the still blue sky. One thing led to another, and Vergil became a wolf and jokingly howled to it. Vergil had been a wolf before, but this time it was different: His fur was tawny and reddish instead of black, and he was far more slender. For a moment she thought he was a coyote, but Vergil corrected her: He didn’t felt like a coyote…But he agreed that he wasn’t exactly the type of wolf he usually turned into.

 

It wasn’t until they came back home that they both noticed that he couldn’t change anymore.

 

* * *

 

 

If Beatrice had known that one day she would be hiding inside a very dark armoire with a boy around her same age in the house of a rich but not-exactly-sane old man, Vergil would have laughed.

 

Heck, he would be laughing right now. He would have been nervous, yes, but he would have taken a moment to laugh at the absurdity of the situation…If he was there with her.

 

“Okay, I think they are gone…”-Wirt says- “…Beatrice, are you there?”

 

He tried to find her with his hands, but nearly knocked her over.

 

“Yes, smart guy!”- She replied, feeling angry- “Start searching for change!”

 

Beatrice couldn’t see them, but she could hear Abnoba, now a bat, flapping their wings and helping Wirt in his brief search, rustling the fabrics.

 

“Well, I don’t think these coats have pockets…”

 

“Check the lining”- She suggested- “Maybe somebody sewed money into the fabric.”

 

“Do people even do that?”- Wirt was quick to ask, while his daemon checked the linings anyway as he spoke. Nothing.

 

“I’ve done it on my clothes”

 

“You wear clothes?”- Now he sounded amused, as if she had said a joke- “Like a little bird vest or something? Or little bows?”

 

Then he laughs. And it’s quick, but in the proximity they are there in the closet, Beatrice can hear for a brief moment his daemon laughing with him. It’s quick and quiet, barely loud enough to hear, but Abnoba’s laugh is different enough from Wirt’s for her to distinguish. Their voices are still very alike though…

 

“When I was a human, fool!”- She exclaims, irritated.

 

There’s a brief silence, and Beatrice remembers a little too late that that wasn’t something she had wanted them to know.

 

“You used to be human?”- Wirt asked, confused- “Did I knew that? I…I don’t think I knew that…”

 

Abnoba is no longer flying around the coats, and Beatrice knows that he has realized first the little detail his human half was still too surprised to ask about.

 

“…Let’s just find some coins, all right?”

 

* * *

 

 

If people weren’t suspicious around Beatrice before Vergil settled, they definitely were now. They didn’t spoke about it to her face like before, but in a way that just made it worse.  She still had a clear idea of what they said about her behind her back, though: That wolves are okay for warriors and hunters but not for a normal young lady, that coyotes were a bad omen, of how her daemon was obviously a hybrid of wolf and coyote and that only could mean bad things about her…

 

Her mother just brushed it off: They would all get used to it, it was only a matter of time. And to be fair, she was probably right… A shame that she didn’t lived enough to see it.

 

Because not long after that, she and Vergil woke up to the sight of smoke and flames surrounding them. Their home, their family’s home, for some reason they never got to know, caught fire, and nothing was the same after that. She, along with her mother and brothers, ended up on that forest and moved in to the Mill, and only Beatrice seemed to remember or care that things were not always that way.

 

And she was angry, because those idiots who thought her daemon’s form was going to give her bad luck must had thought that they were proven right. 

 

“…We didn’t make it out of that fire alive, didn’t we?”- She asked, even though she already knew the answer, and her daemon could only nod.

 

They both turned around when they heard it: A bluebird had flown to the tree behind them and was staring at them.

 

In an impulse, as a way to let out her frustration, she took the nearest rock and threw it at it…

 

* * *

 

 

“So…About your dark secret”- Wirt said, as they walked through the armoire’s secret entrance. His daemon, enjoying having more freedom and fresh air, flew around for a few more seconds before landing on the ground as a fox once again.

 

“Hey…How about you telling me your dark secrets instead?”- Beatrice asked back. The way Abnoba froze on the spot when she said that almost made her feel guilty.

 

Almost.

 

“My secrets are too secret…”-Wirt quickly answered. Abnoba, meanwhile, quickly ran ahead of them. Beatrice thought for a moment that it was an act of nervousness, until it became apparent that his white paws were pointing something. – “Hey, look, light!”

 

“…Now who’s avoiding the question?”

 

“You”- Wirt said, while his daemon turned to stare at her, shifting into a lynx. Beatrice knew, even without looking at those feline eyes, that Wirt wouldn’t stop asking until he got an answer.

 

“Fine”- She spat- “I threw a rock at a bluebird and it cursed me and my family. Now we are all bluebirds. Happy? Now you go…”

 

“Whoa…Your whole family?”- The expression both boy and daemon shared after such revelation would have been funny out of context.

 

“…Yeah”- Beatrice said, trying not to think about too much. That had been the most nightmarish thing, the part she blamed herself for the most.

 

The first thing she had done after recovering from the shock and learning how to use her wings was to fly back home. When she was nearby, she heard one of her brothers screaming and saw the bunch of scared bluebirds flying around: Her mother trying to calm both herself and her brothers and calling for her, searching her, while one of them was loudly weeping about how he and his Clary were climbing a tree and how she was a bird at that moment and in the next he was the one who was the bird and she was gone…

 

She couldn’t go there and admit to them that it was her fault, so she flew away…

 

One thing she hadn’t expected to happen pulled her out of her thoughts: Abnoba spoke.

 

“…Where’s your daemon?”- He asked, his shock overcoming his shyness. He hadn’t changed his form, but now he looked more like a scared kitten that the brave lynx he was trying to be.

 

Wirt picked him up and held him in his arms, to comfort him… Or to keep him quiet. Maybe both.

 

“I don’t know…”- Beatrice sighed- “He vanished after… _that_ happened”

 

“Wait…’Vanished’ as in he didn’t want to be around you and left, like with the witches?”-Wirt asked, visibly uncomfortable-“Or…”

 

“He disappeared, alright?”- She exclaimed, angry. It wasn’t Wirt’s fault, but she still couldn’t help but scream angrily at him- “He vanished in the air, and my family’s daemons did the same. He would be here if that didn’t happened, he would have never left me…”

 

She wasn’t looking at Wirt and his daemon anymore. She was too busy trying to relax.

 

“They aren´t dead, okay?”- She explained, even though Wirt had not asked- “I can bring them back. I can fix it. I know I can…”

 

She remembered Adelaide, that creepy witch, and the owl…vulture…thing she had for a daemon. How she had promised her that the scissors would make them human again. Daemons and all.

 

“Is that why you are going to Adelaide’s?”-Wirt asked- “To fix things?”

 

“That was the plan, but…”- Beatrice really, really didn’t want to think of what would be of Wirt and Greg when…If she gave them to Adelaide.

 

At the first she thought it would be easy: Just one or two lost children in exchange of her family’s humanity. Vergil would have disagreed, he would have refused to such an immoral idea…But then again, Vergil wasn’t there, and she had to fix that no matter what. Beatrice could live if her daemon hated her for the rest of their lives, as long as he was back and her mother and brothers got their souls back too.

 

…But as she travelled with said lost kids, things stopped being so easy.

 

She looked up, and saw Wirt and his daemon still staring at her. Abnoba was smaller now, a cute ferret on Wirt’s arms, and he held him closer to his chest. It was the most affectionate action between the two of them Beatrice had seen yet, and she realized…

 

The thing about Wirt that annoyed her the most was seeing him take his daemon for granted.

 

 “…Yeah, that was the plan.”- She sighed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daemons introduced in this chapter:
> 
> Beatrice's daemon, Vergil, is a **Red Wolf ******. Red wolves are different to grey wolves in that they appear to have some coyote ancestry, scientists think that they may be a hybrid breed of sorts. Both coyotes and wolves have some bad reputation: Coyotes are known as omens of bad luck and dishonesty, and wolves are the main villains of lots of fairy tales. But at the same time, the wolf is also known for their sheer loyalty to their pack: Beatrice was going to trick two innocent boys to give them to a witch, it's true, but it was because she wanted to help her family (And helself too, but mostly her family). And after she bonded with the boys, she was willing to sacrifice herself for them, too. She still isn't what you probably could call "nice" or "gentle" most of the time, though, much like the wolf is still a wild animal you can't go to and pet it like if it was a dog.
> 
>  
> 
> Both 'Beatrice' and 'Vergil' are names of characters from Dante's The Divine Comedy. 
> 
>  
> 
> Adelaide's daemon is a **Strix** : An owl-like mythological bird that feeds from children's blood. I thought abouth giving her a black widow or some other kind of spider, but I kept investigating, and if we add the fact that HDM witches always have bird daemons, it just fits!
> 
>  
> 
> Quincy Endicott has a **Sugar glider ******: Too energetic for their own good, usually cheerful...And can go insane in isolation.
> 
>  
> 
> Also, just in case anyone ask: One of Beatrice's brothers's daemon is named Clarissa, but he calls her Clary for short. No reason in particular at all, I needed to give her a name and I thought that one sounded pretty.

**Author's Note:**

> Both Wirt and Greg's daemons have names based on Celtic mythology, I would like to say that for symbolism, but mainly because it sounded right, I'm not going to lie. Also, I choose similar-sounding names for both siblings.
> 
> Wirt's daemon, Abnoba (Noba for short), is named after a Gaulish goddess of rivers and forests who was worshipped in the Black Forest and surrounding areas. Needless to say, the feminine origin of the name is a little awkward for them.
> 
> Reflecting Wirt's insecurities, Noba favours small forms (Insects, lizards, different species of rodents), to make people ignore his presence. Their most common form was a Dead leaf butterfly. As they travel through the Unknown, however, Noba experiments with some predator forms, mostly birds of prey and felines. 
> 
> Yes, he will settle at the end of the fic. Wait for it. :)
> 
> Iova is short for Iovantucarus, a Celtic god. The name reflects the deity's function as a protector of youth, and the temple was apparently visited by pilgrims who often brought with them images of children. Both Greg and his daemon joke happily about how it sounds as the perfect name for a dinosaur.
> 
> Saying that Iova is much more extroverted than Noba is an understatement. She is constantly running around, actively participating in Greg's games, and takes whatever crazy form she and Greg think looks cool at the time, reflecting Gregory's wild imagination. When she isn't flying around as a songbird, she favours infant forms of wild animals, and spends most of their journey through the Unknown as a tiger cub. Why? Because magical tigers, that's why.
> 
> (As for why they both have genderbending names: Noba was assumed to be female when he was born and named as such before he could voice his identity. Iova was their mother's attempt for a gender-neutral name, in case Gregory's daemon was just like his brother's. They don't mind.) 
> 
> The Woodsman's daemon is a female American Black bear. Female bears are very protective of their cubs, and black bears in particular are happy to live peacefully without hurting anyone unless they are forced to attack. They are also more often found in habitats with lots of arboreal vegetation. Bears are also associated with wisdom, protection and revenge. 
> 
> And just because they are mentioned on this chapter: Sara has a Bee-Eater daemon, and not only for the obvious joke. They are very sociable birds, and are associated with colors, healing and finding answers. His name derivates from the greek word for 'Beloved'. (αγαπητός/agapitós -> Agapi)
> 
> Jason Funderbecker has a Hognose snake daemon, much to Wirt's rage. In the HDM universe, snake daemons are often associated to intellectual people, but Hognose snakes are to me more dorky than anything else: Their main defence is playing dead, for crying out loud. Of course, Wirt wouldn't see it like this.
> 
> Also, Mister O'Brien is a character I invented because I wanted Greg to point out that insect daemons aren't that bad. We only know a neighbour of them in canon, Lady Daniels, and I think a housecat daemon suits her more, so I had to create another character for that. And to my fellow bookworms out there: Yes, his name is a small reference to _1984_.


End file.
